Anycubic Kobra X Makes 4-Color 3D Printing Surprisingly Cheap

Anycubic's Kobra X arrived quietly in early 2026 and has stayed under the radar relative to the Bambu Lab A1. That is a mistake. At $299, it is the cheapest printer on the market that ships with genuine four-color multicolor capability out of the box, and the engineering underneath that price is more sophisticated than the figure suggests.

Where the multicolor hardware actually lives

Every budget multicolor printer before the Kobra X used the same basic approach: an external hub mounted somewhere beside the printer, long Bowden tubes feeding a single nozzle, and a purge bucket that fills up faster than you would like. The Bambu Lab A1 Combo uses this model. The older Kobra 3 Combo used it too. The Kobra X does not.

Anycubic miniaturised its ACE Gen 2 multicolor system and mounted it directly inside the toolhead carriage. The filament paths are shorter, the color-swap cycle is faster, and the amount of purge material required to clear one color before the next flows cleanly drops by roughly 40-50% in real-world testing compared to an external AMS setup. Anycubic's lab spec claims an 81.25% reduction in purge path length versus conventional external-AMS systems. The real-world number is more modest but still meaningful when you run frequent color changes.

What you get for $299

The build volume is 260 x 260 x 260 mm, which is slightly larger than the Bambu A1's 256 x 256 x 256 mm bed. The recommended print speed is 300 mm/s, with a 600 mm/s ceiling. The 600 mm/s figure is a benchmark, not a daily driver setting. At 300 mm/s with vibration compensation on, surface quality is clean on PLA and PETG. The hardened steel nozzle ships as standard, handles carbon-fiber filaments, and is tool-free to swap.

The 49-point LeviQ 3.0 auto-levelling system runs on first boot without manual tramming. Setup from unboxing to first print takes roughly 22 minutes, which is shorter than the Bambu A1 Combo out-of-box experience. The AI camera detects spaghetti prints and foreign objects mid-job and pauses the print automatically.

Expanding beyond four colors

Four colors come standard. If you need more, Anycubic sells up to four ACE 2 Pro expansion units, pushing the system to 19 colors total. Each ACE 2 Pro costs $99-129. One note for upgraders: the older ACE Pro (not the ACE 2 Pro) is physically incompatible with the Kobra X. Anycubic flagged this on the product page after early buyers ran into it.

Active filament drying during prints requires the ACE 2 Pro. The base Kobra X does not dry filament on its own. That is a real limitation if you print nylon or polycarbonate regularly in a humid environment.

Where it still shows its price

The open-frame design is the main constraint. Large ABS or ASA parts will warp without an aftermarket enclosure. The Kobra X's natural sweet spots are PLA, PETG, and TPU. If engineering materials are your primary use case, the Anycubic Kobra S1 Combo at $459 is the better call. It uses a CoreXY motion system, has an enclosed chamber, and routes multicolor through the same ACE 2 Pro external hub.

The landscape

The Bambu Lab A1 Combo costs $419. It has a deeper community, a more mature slicer, and better third-party filament detection profiles. For power users who want ecosystem breadth, Bambu still wins. For anyone whose multicolor printing is mostly PLA figurines, toy parts, and home decor, the Kobra X delivers 90% of the experience at 70 cents on the dollar.

The consumer multicolor market has split into two tiers: the $299-350 entry tier where the Kobra X lives, and the $400-500 ecosystem tier dominated by Bambu. What the Kobra X proved is that you do not need the ecosystem overhead to get genuine four-color capability. Whether other brands follow that design choice will determine how fast multicolor printing becomes a standard feature rather than a premium add-on.